5 more mins

When I was 5, i wished for 5 more mins to play in the sun. To lay in the grass with my daisy chain around my neck watching clouds floating by. Occasionally we would see an aeroplane drifting on by. But now I don’t play because I’m 10. When you’re 10 you ask for more time to watch. Watch your tv, ipad or iphone. You live on the screen. And dream of the day you can wear makeup and drive a car. You mix slime and play puzzles and card games. 

When I am 15 I wont watch. I’ll be. I’ll be a girlfriend. I’ll be a best friend. I’ll be a sports player. I’ll be a teen. I’ll ask for 15 more minutes to hangout and have fun. I’ll laugh at how silly the world can be because I’m at the midway between being a child and being a teen. One day I’ll be 20. I’ll want to be big. I’ll want to be married. I’ll want to be free. Maybe I’ll travel. Maybe I’ll study. Eventually I’ll have to work and when I do i’ll ask for 20 more mins to fit in more crazy things to try. 

25? Wow I’ve been 20 something for 5 years already? Time to wake up. That’s when I’ll really come alive. I’ll become responsible. I’ll become reliable. I’ll be punctual. I’ll be someone’s parent. Someone will be my child. The world will suddenly be cruel. Everything dangerous. For the first time I’ll love someone more than myself. I’ll ask for 25 more minutes to keep them safe and give them warm hugs.  

Thirty is when you have another. And suddenly you realise what exhausted and broke feels like. You’re filled up with love and drained out of energy. You beg for 30 more mins to sleep but you know its not coming. Deep down you don’t really want it because you’re afraid you’ll miss out. So you pass out awake and sleep standing up. 

You become conscious again at 35. Now they’ve grown a little and are less needy of you. You look in the mirror and wonder who are you? Somewhere, somehow you’ve lost touch with yourself. Now is the time to find the new you. So you take up some hobbies, you learn   a new sport. You volunteer some and life is great. You ask for 35 more minutes to squeeze in one more episode of your favourite series. 

And then you’re 40. You go to Makka. You perform your Umrah. You perform your Hajj. You tick the boxes to calm the storm that is brewing. The storm that says the time is coming. The departure time. When you’re born, your train leaves the station. Its coming to collect you. But you don’t know at which station it will appear. So you ask for 40 more mins to pray. Prayers to give you peace and acceptance. 

Happy Birthday 45. Yes every birthday you now celebrate because you’re alive. You eat well. You’re in great shape. You read more. You sleep more. You’re happy. You’re healthy. Alhamdullilah. Your kids start talking marriage. You’re gonna need 45 more mins to help them get grounded. They’ll need a job, they’ll need a car. They’ll need a house. You’ve been there, they need you to show them the way. 

Hello 50, how quickly you’ve come. One day I was 5 and now I’m not. I cant get a job. But I can start a business. Maybe I do. I still have the energy and also the time. 50 more minutes I’ll need to make some more money. Pension is poor and retirement isn’t cheap. Congratulations, at 55 you’re a grandparent. You’re filled with glee. You can love unconditionally and spoil ridiculously. Candy floss for breakfast and ice cream for dinner. 55 more mins to hug and kiss and hangout with my legacy please. One day they will be here and I will be gone.

60 is when you queue in the line. Pension please. Discounts and rebates please. When day hospital means spend the whole day at the hospital. You get meds for your meds. Lotion for your cracks. And medicine to flush and keep you regular. You try the alternatives. You swallow the seeds, the ridiculous teas. You suck, pop and annoint yourself to ease the coming of old age. 60 more mins please I’m almost at the end of the queue.

At 65 you’ve made peace with the new you. You’ve regulated your body and now all seems ok. It is what it is and it wont be what it’s not. Now you need 65 more mins to have tea with your friends. You talk about trips and people you know. The list has grown longer of people you’ve lost. You love your past and you celebrate your life. You can hear the train in the distance. 

You’ve reached 70. You’re grateful, so grateful. You pray for 70 more mins each minute of the day. Your grandkids now know enough that you won’t be forgotten. A part of you will stay. You’re ready to go but actually no not yet. You’re still afraid but now more accepting.

75 your mind starts to slip. You’re sure you did something. But did you? You didn’t. You say something you didn’t think and think something you didn’t say. Its all a muddle. Now you’re afraid. 75 more mins to be me. The me that I know. The me thats been my companion for so very long. But that persons going. Each day they visit less. 

At 80 you don’t care a damn anymore. You don’t know anyone. And you don’t like it here. Nothing tastes good. Nothing feels good. You’ve stopped asking for more time. Now you say take me God I’ve had enough.

Paranoia of parenthood

Looking at parenthood from the outside is like watching someone eat chocolate. You imagine all these feelings and sensations that person must be feeling. And you imagine how you might enjoy experiencing those same feelings. 

Then one day you have a kid. And you have a moment where you realise, that sometimes chocolate tastes awfully bitter. Even though still enjoyable, its bitter as hell. For me it was that moment when i discovered just how paranoid you become as a parent. Everything and everyone you come across gets assessed for the risk they pose. Does this person have my child’s best interest at heart? Has this cup been cleaned properly? Is that an old tissue she using to wipe her nose, omg. It can drive you insane. Until you recognise that you have become that kind of parent you cannot change it. You watch out for your child constantly. It starts from the moment you first conceive. Suddenly you’re eating better, taking more vitamins, having more sleep. And it ends when either of you die. 

The first kid always gets the full effect of paranoid parenting. Its the learning curve. We cut our teeth on their illnesses, their hurts, their crazy love of flying and jumping off sky high platforms and diving backwards into the pool. When the second kid arrives, they get a limited exposure pass to the investigations of fevers, rashes, coughs, funny sounds and they get to roam a little more freely in the park than their older sibling got to. The third kid is probably the luckiest. That kid gets a free pass. He is now under the wardship of his two older siblings and woe betide their butts should anything happen to him. Subsequently he is always the craziest.

Its hard being a parent. It really is. If you want to be a great parent it comes at a price. I love the chinese tiger mom theory about parenting. If your child is a success its because you invested in them. If your child is a failure it is because you failed them. Accepting that responsibility puts an enormous amount of pressure on any parent. Sometimes you just cannot get there because life gets in the way. But sometimes we forget that family is life. Parents are the captains of those families. We have to teach them to parent. And to parent well. It is how we preserve the human race. It is how we create people who love people. 

Being a paranoid parent means you have to get in front of the battle. Every single time. You have to fight for them. Protect them. Guide them to the paths that are best for them. You cannot force them to live a life you choose for them but by God you can think a few steps ahead to anticipate any potential pitfalls they may encounter. To keep their way clear so that they may grow up to explore their potential and strive to surpass it.

Trust your gut. Trust yourself. You are all your child needs. Be their parent. Be their rock. 

deaTh to pErfection,

Writing the heading that way drove me nuts.

I always thought that being a perfectionist was an awesome quality. Everything you touched turned out rock solid. Reliable. Dependable. When you are involved, everything turns out exactly as planned. Except. Does it really? Being a perfectionist creates an awful lot of pressure and tension. Makes every task stressful and cumbersome. You overthink things and constantly try to bring things back to the way it should be to be perfect instead of letting it flow and discovering a brand new outcome. A version you did not anticipate. But perfectionists cannot handle quick changes. I know i cannot. Surprises leave me filled with angst and anxiety, asking myself am i going to like it, am I going to hate it? Am i going to have to pretend to be ok with something I am not sure about yet. 

Thats the mind of the perfectionist. We know what we like and why. And what we loathe and why. Everything gets sampled, classified, labelled and filed away neatly and kept orderly for later referral. My perfectionism has even kept me from partaking in anything i cannot guarantee success in. I would rather try it quietly where no one can see me fail. Non participation is easier to deal with than public failure. No one likes to lose. But is losing that bad? Why do we shy away from losing? Why is failure and coming last such a huge deal? No one remembers the losers. But come to think of it who remembers the winners? After a certain amount of time it is all the same. Inconsequential. 

How hard would it be to actively seek out something to fail at everyday. You would actually have to live outside your head for once. Because inside your head everything is an organised symphony. Its a safe space without pressure or disappointment. I saw a video once where someone sought out rejection every day. He decided to push himself into his fear of failure by asking strangers everyday for something he knew they were more prone to reject than agree to. The experiment yielded results he had not imagined. He had not been rejected as much as he had imagined he would be. And when he was it did not feel as bad. 

What is a life well lived if we do not actively seek to evolve. As time goes on we learn more about ourselves and we notice the things that make us better and the things that hold us back. The less time you have left makes the change within yourself even more pressing. 

My hurdles of perfectionism and procrastination are the biggest reasons why i feel stumped. Now i cannot remember what it feels like to be free of your own restraints. My release mechanisms have become locked over the years. Just like the YES man movie i have to make a drastic effort to break it loose. I am going to try eating rejection biscuits every day. Dear God, please keep me from curling myself into a ball in the corner and muttering to myself about squirrels stealing my truth. I will not give up. I will not stop until I have released myself from my own mind shackles. Rage, I will rage.

“There is no way to genuinely, powerfully, truly love yourself while crafting a mask of perfection.”     Vironika Tugaleva

Life is a series of small decisions

Every morning we start our day making small decisions. Do we make our bed now. Brush our teeth now? What’s for breakfast today. Every move we make is governed by  these decisions. It’s a series of game moves that propel us in the direction we wish to go. 

Some choices move us away from our goal. We get distracted we deviate and some times we return to the initial path. Other times we change our paths and make the current path the new chosen path. It’s all programming. It’s the matrix. And it’s how we live our lives every single day. 

I wonder whether it would be possible to go about your day not making a single decision. Perhaps that’s what the movie the Yes man was all about. Removing your ability to navigate your own life and letting fate and the whims of others dictate where you end up. 

It might be an interesting experiment to yield fully to the ocean of possibility. Who knows where you might end up. You could end up in the gutter. Addicted to your vices. You could end up in another country. You could end up with a large family. The avenues are  so many. How many of us can truly let go. I know I couldn’t. I couldn’t imagine that someone else might know what is better for me. You’re not me. So how can you know how to make a better me. 

It’s a case of the reflecting mirror i suppose. So many versions of possible outcomes. And only one can be true. The others are all reflections of you. The amazing thing is that you can pick out the you that you want to become in that moment. That is power. That is endless possibility. That is owning yourself and your true raw potential. And it’s alive and beating every single moment just waiting for you to direct it. 

“I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”     Invictus

We have become a race of tv watchers.

In the generations to come our generation will be known as the tv watchers. We watch. We watch our screens all day. We watch Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, twitter the list goes on and on. 

Where’s the time for free thinking? Where we dream. Where we plan. Where we build castles in the sky. Who are we if we have no dreamers left? Dreamers built the car, they built a plane, they built a spaceship. 

You won’t be building anything watching someone else’s social media profile. I would argue you should build your own profile but that just continues the cycle. And someone else will then be watching you. 

I want to say stop the social media but it’s become so useful. How else would we stay in touch? Heaven forbid we actually speak to anyone. You’d have to be ready with actual words. Not words you plotted out before you posted them as an impromptu Facebook status. 

Gone are the days of the handwritten note. Where words are chosen carefully and time is taken to write as mistakes are permanent. We’ve become so fleeting. Leaving nothing memorable behind. No lasting imprint. Movies are forgettable. Music is but a faint echo like a tune played by a passing car. Here for a moment and then gone and never heard again. 

We regurgitate instead of creating. We think we are improving but all we are doing is moving the furniture from one room to another. We hardly make furniture anymore. It used to be a requirement to have a set of skills that you may be judged by. One wasn’t enough, it had to be at least three. Writing which could be stories or poetry. Music. And ofcourse some sporting activity. There were also skills to choose from like wood carving, painting, collecting all sorts of memorabilia like spoons or stamps. 

People used to be so much more interesting. So many more layers. Mysterious and multi faceted. Now we are one dimensional and very very shiny. The more glamorous and glitzy, the more believable and popular we become. It all feeds back into the virtual realities we buy into that we watch on our screens. Screens will be our downfall. Because when we watch the screens we forget to look around us. 

When all is said and done, who are we really?

Do you know? Do you know who you are without the commitments and have to dos in your life? Without the responsibilities to family, without the financial pursuits of work. Stripped down to your basic self do you know who that person is? 

Sometimes in life we become so engrossed in what we have to do we forget or rather sideline what we want to do. I would like to take street fashion photographs, but I would have to leave the house for that. Which I can't so let's shelve that idea. How many ideas in your life have you shelved because at that moment it is not practical or possible. Do you ever go back when it might be? Or is it just in that moment that the desire exists and when it has passed so does the desire. So it inevitably becomes a story about how once long ago you wanted to take some street fashion pictures. 

I can't leave it there. I shouldn't. I mustn't. Yet I have, because it's still not practical. Will it ever be? Or is it totally possible and in my narrow mindedness I'm missing the opportunity because I refuse to accept it the way it is presented. We all have an idea of where we want to go with a dream and sometimes it's easier to keep it a dream than to watch it wither and die. Because to bring a dream to life takes courage. Commitment. Huge amounts of effort. And the ability to remain unaffected by criticism. There are a lot of critics out there waiting to let you know where you fall short. Just like back seat drivers, there are backseat dreamers. 

So who are we? A bundle of unrealized dreams. We are loaded with potential and anchored by fear. Saddled with responsibilities. The reasons for 'not now' outweigh the reasons for 'absolutely right now'. We must harness that power. We can create the opportunity if we're willing to make the effort. The ones who have are flying in the sky holding their dreams with both hands. The rest of us are still here, grounded. Waiting and watching for someone else to clear the way for us. 

So the next time you have an idea, you can choose. Does it become a story about how you almost did something amazing. Do you leave the idea in your mind because failure is not an option. Or do you say this time I hear you. This time my dream will breath the air of possibility. I will make it so. And just like that a new journey of self discovery will begin. A new chapter in the story of you will begin. Because life is a book and you are on the cover and everything else is a chapter inside it.

When giants fall... who is left to lead the charge?

I never thought I would be writing about this so soon. Somehow I always expected my teachers to be around to continue to teach me. Even when we had done our high school dance the music always lingered as long as they were alive. I was the student and they were the teachers. Ready to be called upon.

But when the teachers start to fall, the students have to step up and offer the lessons they have learnt, it fills me with fear and anxiety. I have not learnt enough! They have not shared enough! And when they leave us long before we expect them to, we realise we have run out of time. Out of opportunity. And they leave a cavenous emptiness we can never hope to fill. 

Mr Goolam Pandit was the most relevant, forward thinking, intuitive, inspiring, game changing giant I had ever met. He made a difference. Every day. In every moment. It makes me sad that I have lost him and it makes me even more sad that future generations of students  will never have the pleasure of having met him. I wish I had reached out sooner and let him know how thankful I am for the effort and time he had invested in all of us. I always hoped I would run into him again somewhere along my life’s journey. I imagined that he would have some witty, acerbic, sarcastic comment to deliver with his usual flair. And I would offer up something to match. For this was our language. Delivering foul insults with a comedic tinge. But alas that was not meant to be.

I guess that leaves us to lead the charge. To make sure proper English remains lit. Rest well my English giant. The world became too small for a man of your stature. You will always live on in the mind ripples you created in all of us. You took teaching to a fare-thee-well.

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” - Richard Bach

“For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.” - Kahlil Gibran

Until we meet again.